Power
by Sennethe
Summary: Things do not always go as you imagined when you wish away that child. Rated for mild violence and sexual situation. COMPLETE


This was originally written in the fall of 2000. The rating is for mild violence and sexuality. I'm not sure where the lines are drawn for that. It's pretty tame compared to some and may be rated too strongly, but it's there so you're forewarned.

* * *

"Look what I'm offering you." He held out the crystal sphere. "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you and you can have everything that you want," he entreated the young woman standing in front of him.

She might have been Sarah, but she wasn't, not in this time and place. This one was like so many he had seen before, a red-head with a romantic bent who liked to think of herself in terms of one of the romance novels she was so fond of reading: long, fiery tresses, porcelain skin, and eyes that reminded people of the sea, changeable from green to blue to violet as her temper changed. He sighed wearily and didn't disillusion her – that wasn't the task at hand.

She paused a moment as if debating her choices or fighting her impulses.

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave," he added dutifully, but really there was no need. He knew her choice was never in doubt.

.….

"This will be your room," he told her as he opened a door in passing. He continued on down the corridor removing the white cloak of gossamer and bone as he went.

She stood in the doorway, speechless, looking from the room to his receding figure. "Wait," she finally managed to croak.

He paused and turned impatiently halfway down the hall.

"That's it? That's all there is to it? 'This is my room?' What about the rest of it?"

He frowned and walked back to her. "The rest of what? In exchange for the child you accepted the crystal of your dreams. It consisted of living here in the castle with me, I believe. This is it. You are living in the castle."

"What happened to Alex?"

"What usually happens?" He smiled and she recoiled slightly at the sight, looking dismayed. "Now go to your room like a good little girl and stay out of the way until you are called for." He patted her on the cheek and steered her through the doorway, closing the door behind her.

He resumed walking down the hallway, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping at his makeup as he did so. He decided to leave her there a while to make his point.

.….

The door closed behind her and she stared at the room in front of her. It wasn't bad really – it just wasn't what she had been expecting. No hanging draperies of fabric, no plush rugs, no immense fireplaces or inviting balconies. Just functional, comfortable furniture. A table, a few chairs, a twin bed, a pair of narrow windows.

"There has to be a mistake. This isn't how it's supposed to be." She tried the door behind her, wanting someone to correct this mistake, but it was locked.

.….

After a week, he decided she had had time enough to adjust to her new quarters and paid her a visit.

"How are you liking your dream life?"

"I'm bored. And there's something wrong with the door. I can't get it to open."

"How awful. They have been feeding you, haven't they?"

"Yeah, those goblins are the only creatures I've seen all week. Why didn't you come back?"

"I wanted to leave you some time to get settled in. Would you like to take a walk?"

"Anything to get out of here."

He offered her his arm and they strolled down to the Goblin City. It happened to be a market day, which did not offer much in the way of goods or entertainment for nongoblin participants, but they made the most of it. Jareth bought her the few treats she found that she liked. This improved her spirits greatly and soon she was laughing at goblin antics and his silly little jokes.

They wandered back to the castle and he invited her to join him for dinner. She accepted readily. This was more like what she had been expecting. He could see her rebuilding the dream castles in her mind.

He continued this routine for several weeks, taking her on tours of his kingdom in the afternoons and dining with her at night, entertaining her and charming her, but leaving her alone in her room the rest of the time. Then he stopped coming.

As he watched her in a crystal the first day he could see her making excuses to herself for him, certain there must be a perfectly good reason for him to be late, then later, and then not to come at all.

The second day she watched her clock anxiously for the time he usually appeared, fidgeting about the room nervously. As the hour arrived and passed she sank deeper and deeper into one of the chairs.

The days passed. As a tease he occasionally sent a goblin to her door on some excuse or another at about the usual time, just so he could see her hopes raised and then dashed an instant later. She gradually quit watching for the time and soon she merely sat at the table for hours, gazing morosely at the sky out the knife slit of a window in front of her, ignoring the clock completely.

Eventually she came to life only when the goblins entered her room with her food on a tray and then even that failed to gain her attention. She went to bed when she could no longer see the sky through the window and slept until she woke. She ate absentmindedly when it occurred to her, often leaving the food untouched.

This was what he was waiting for.

.….

He stood in front of the window, waiting for her to react, to notice him blocking her view. It took longer than he had expected – maybe he shouldn't have waited as long as he had.

Her mind returned from its wandering and her eyes focused again, finally registering a change in her surroundings. When he was certain she was looking at him instead of through him he addressed her.

"Still dreaming?"

Her eyes filled with tears, but did not spill over. "I haven't got anything else to do. Where did you go? Why did you stop coming?" she asked in a small voice.

"Boredom." He leaned on the table in front of her. "The bane of our existence. You know, you should really take better care of yourself," he said, lifting a limp, dirty lock of hair. "Go wash," he commanded, backing away with disgust. "You're not fit to do anything with."

He waited for her to return, leaning against the wall, staring out her window, wondering what she had seen out there. She had been retreating into her dreams most likely. When she returned well scrubbed, he looked at her and sniffed.

"Better," he allowed. "Can you do anything?"

"What?"

"Can you do anything? Sing? Dance? Play an instrument? I am having guests tonight and I need entertainment."

Her confusion sagged into disappointment. "I've taken dancing and acting lessons. I can sing a little and play the piano," she mumbled.

"A little? Are you any good? It doesn't matter, I don't really have a choice. I'll send a goblin for you," he informed her and left.

.….

"Ah, here's the entertainment. I may have to apologize for this, I'm afraid. You see, my usual performer came down sick at the very last moment and I had to dig this thing out of a closet upstairs." His guests murmured sympathetically about the difficulty in finding good help anymore. "I haven't even had a chance to see if she's any good. It will be a surprise for all of us."

"If nothing else, perhaps we will have a good laugh out of it," an elven noblewoman comforted him as she dispassionately watched the girl sit down at the piano.

She began to sing and play and, after a shaky start, Jareth had to admit to himself that she was not too bad at it. He let her play until the guests began to tire of her and grew restless.

"That's enough. You may go now," he told her.

.….

One morning, a week or so later he sent a goblin for her again. She came listlessly to the throne room where he waited.

"There you are," he greeted her cheerily, sitting up in his throne.

She looked up at him. "You sent for me. Is there going to be another party?"

"Party? Oh, no, no," he assured her. "I just wanted to see you. Come sit here by me." He patted the throne and directed her to sit on the floor at his feet.

"I haven't seen you in quite some time," he said as he pressed her to rest her head on his knee. He stroked her hair for a few moments, leaving her time to ask questions if she wanted. When she asked none, he continued on, picking up as if it had been only days instead of a year since he had last done anything with her.

"What shall we do today? What do you think of another walk through the Labyrinth, hmm?" He stood up and pulled her up after him. "Come along. Let's go."

They wandered through the Labyrinth, the Goblin King solicitously walking by her side and pointing things out to her, conversing with her as if she answered him back. He repeated this routine day after day in various settings until he achieved his goal and she would answer him back and converse with him as if nothing had happened between them. He courted her again with flowers and trinkets, winning her over to trust him again bit by bit.

She began to tell him fragments of her hopes and dreams, those she had of the Underground and of her own world. He used this to his advantage and gave her pieces of them back. She accepted the pieces – the little scenes he played out for her, the gifts he gave her – readily, hungry for any joy or fulfillment, however shallow, that she could get.

The more she took, the harder he pressed her in exchange to trust him and forget the past as a bad dream. It was essential that she trust him again. And trust him she did. Once he got her to forget the months alone, it was a quick, simple step from giving gifts to giving kisses and caresses. It was what she had expected from the beginning after all.

.….

He played on all her little fantasies, setting the scene as she had described. The dinner, the dress, the flowers, the candles – they were all there. "She makes this almost too easy," he thought as they sat down to dinner.

He had been careful to have all the dishes placed near him, so that she would have to ask for anything she wanted. As he passed them to her he made certain he touched her, at least brushing her hand each time. They talked of nothing in particular, but he watched her constantly, as though hanging on her every word. Once he reached over and brushed an imaginary hair away from her face.

Every contact, every glance she shot his way that he caught with a steady gaze unsettled her a little more. Soon she was fidgeting in her chair and dropping utensils, which he of course retrieved for her and had replaced – yet another opportunity for physical contact.

When dessert arrived and was placed between them she nervously picked up a berry to serve herself. He stopped her and brought her hand up to feed it to himself as her eyes grew wide with shock. Then, careful to select only the smaller fruits, he began to feed them to her.

Soon his fingers were berry-stained because he had removed his gloves for the dinner. "All the better to touch you with, my dear," he thought.

It required more coaxing to persuade her, giggling all the while, to feed more to him. At first he was well behaved, relatively anyway. He didn't have much choice since she chose the largest pieces in the dish. But as she ran out of the larger fruit, they both became more daring. Before she knew it she was sitting on his lap and then the berries were forgotten.

As he worked his way down her throat and neck he blessed her for having wanted a low cut gown. The ones who chose the high-necked things out of some sort of false modesty made things so much more difficult for him. He paused to look at her for her reaction. She had closed her eyes, shutting out everything else to concentrate on what he was doing.

"Good," he thought and carefully stood up, sliding her off his lap and to her feet.

Her eyes flew open in confusion and then she was gone.

.….

She stood alone in the strange room, frozen for a moment as she looked around. Now this was more like it. This was what she had expected to see when she arrived here, a large luxurious room draped in rich fabrics, furs and expensive rugs. Before she could go any further with her thoughts, Jareth appeared behind her and wrapped himself around her.

"Is this your room?"

This was exactly the reaction he had expected and was looking for, but he didn't answer her, instead very effectively distracting her by kissing her on the neck. Let her think what she liked; right now it didn't matter what he really was, only what she thought he should be.

He guided her toward the bed and she followed his suggestion unresistingly, draping limply across it when he pushed her down on it.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked her. If she had looked closely at his eyes, she might have noticed that the emotion in his voice did not touch them, but he had gambled correctly that she was too far gone into her dream become real to notice such a discrepancy. She mumbled something that he took for acquiescence and continued his seduction.

He ran his hand along the contours of the icy blue fabric of her dress and it reformed into the crystal it had been and vanished. He quite liked the effect and reminded himself to use it more often.

He ran his hands along her body. The slip and underthings she had on were close enough to naked as to make no difference, but he removed them anyway, item by item, following his slow hands with his mouth. The last garment gone, he returned to her mouth, taking his time exploring the possibilities there as his hands wandered elsewhere.

As she responded to him, moving and making little noises under him, he decided to take advantage of her position draped over the edge of the bed and moved to stand between her knees. This was the tricky part. There was no faking this. Luckily his body's instincts still took over, no matter how many times he had done this.

Whether this was her first time or not, she imagined that it was and she whimpered and grimaced as he entered her. He paused, then continued moving, knowing that it wouldn't last, that it would pass. Soon she was once again moaning beneath him, then gasping and convulsing in ecstasy and he followed her seconds later.

.….

He smiled smugly as he watched her exhausted sleep. She would be sore when she woke, though she would never admit it. How many times had he? Sometimes it paid to be a Goblin King.

He ran his hand along her arm, noticing how their skin color matched. The redheads were the only ones that ever came close to naturally matching his pallor, though their freckles usually gave them away, as much as they hated to admit it.

He sighed and rolled out of the bed. He had a few things to think through and laying here wasn't going to get it done.

.….

This dream state continued for several months, with them meeting each night. Usually he took her to the room, but occasionally he varied the setting – the Labyrinth, the forest, other rooms in the castle – just to keep things interesting. But there came a night when she was very quiet, but agitated, at dinner.

She waited until they were sitting in a chair in front of the fire in the room before she brought it up.

"I have something to tell you."

"Really? What's that?" He feigned mild interest.

"I – I think I'm pregnant."

"So you finally noticed." His voice turned chilly.

"I – I lost track of the days," she stammered, making an excuse.

"And what do you propose to do about it?"

This wasn't going at all how she thought it would. "I thought – that is, I assumed – that I would just have it." He pushed her off his lap and stood up.

"I thought you'd be happy," she pleaded with him and crumpled to the floor as he rounded on her.

"Happy? Why is it you girls always assume that I want children? Don't you think I have enough goblins running around as it is? Don't I have enough mouths to feed? It's bad enough that you expect me to support you; now you want to add another one."

She sat on the floor staring at her hands in her lap, pleating and unpleating a fold in her skirt. After a deep shuddering breath she said, "What do you want me to do, then?"

"Get rid of it, of course."

"But – how? I don't know –" Before she could finish her sentence, before she could move, he turned and lashed out at her, aiming a kick at her abdomen.

"I see I have to do everything around here, don't I?" he snarled at her bending over her as she rolled on the floor in pain. "Well, don't just lay there and make me clean up after you, too. Go make a mess somewhere else."

He stood with an elbow leaning on the mantelpiece, watching her as she half crawled from the room.

"Pity. But it had to be done," he said softly once she was out of sight.

.….

He left her alone for a while, but told the goblins to keep an eye on her. Once he thought she had had time to recover he visited her in the room he had given her at the beginning.

She was lying in bed, facing away from the door looking at one of the windows again. He walked around the foot of the bed and sat down next to her. She covered her face and mumbled, "Go 'way."

He gently pulled her hand away from her face. It looked as though she had been crying constantly since he had last seen her. She pulled her hand back and turned over to face away from him.

"Now is that any way to treat a visitor? Look, I've brought you a gift. Flowers." He produced a large bouquet and leaned over her to place them on the bed in front of her. He pulled her hair back so he could see her face again.

"Thanks. Now go 'way."

"I've come to apologize. I'm sorry I was angry with you. I'm sorry I hurt you. That won't happen again. I promise. You caught me off guard, that's all." He waited for her to answer, but she said nothing.

"Do you want to leave?"

That got her attention. She turned over and stared up at him for a few moments. He held his breath. This was the key and he did not dare influence her one way or the other. She had to decide on her own.

She reached for him and broke into tears. "No, I don't want to go. Don't make me go away. Please." She sobbed against his chest as he held her and sighed.

.….

They returned to her dreamworld and established a pattern. She would float along blissfully until some thing she did or said, imagined or real, would trigger the Goblin King's anger and he would lash out at her and tell her to get out of his sight. Then later – sometimes hours, sometimes days, every once in a while weeks – he would come to her room and beg her forgiveness and promise not to do it again. And she would always forgive him and come back. The pull of the dream was always stronger than the pain of what he had said or done.

In the midst of one of these reconciled periods she came to him to tell him once again that she was pregnant. Remembering his previous reaction, she approached the subject very cautiously.

"You're not mad are you? I can't help it, you know. Please don't be mad." When the news did not ignite his fury – he merely looked at her with an impassive face that she could not read – she felt safe enough to ask him for a boon.

"Will you let me keep it this time? Please? I would love to have a baby to hold and take care of. Can I have this one? Then you can do whatever you want."

Jareth considered. It would pass in a blink of an eye for him, really, then all the fuss would be over. He sighed. "Very well. You may have this one baby. But only this one. After this we'll have to do something about you. You're as bad as a rabbit."

She gave him a particularly enthusiastic kiss that almost made him glad that he hadn't refused her.

.….

The months passed and he refrained from lashing out at her, but she was too deliriously happy to notice. All her attention was focused on her upcoming blessed event.

When she finally went into labor, Jareth stayed well away from her. He wasn't the one who wanted to have the child after all. Why should he be there? If he was needed a goblin would be sent for him.

Once things had settled down, he paid the new mother and child a visit.

Sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, he leaned across her to look at the bundle lying next to her. He picked it up gently while she made a fuss over it. He ignored her cooing and turned to walk out of the room without saying anything to her.

"Where are you going?" she demanded as he walked away.

"To introduce the goblins to their new companion, of course."

"What do you mean? Bring my baby back right now! You're not going anywhere!" She threw off the covers to climb out of the bed.

Jareth turned in surprise at her words. "I'm not?" he challenged her.

She paused, seeming to realize what she was doing, and then straightened, standing in front of him in her bare feet and nightgown. Then she sagged, crumpling in on herself as her courage failed her.

"Please? You said I could keep the baby," she pleaded and clutched at his arm.

"No. No, I didn't." He carefully transferred the baby to rest more securely in his other arm and shook off her hands roughly, causing her to lose her balance and fall to the floor. She was apparently weaker than she looked. "I said you could have the baby. And you said I could do whatever I liked afterward."

"But I meant me, not the baby. I was supposed to get to keep the baby," she wailed and grabbed his leg to prevent him leaving again.

"You seem to have a recurring problem keeping track of children."

"No, I don't. I want this one. I didn't wish this one away." She looked up at him, pleading with tearful eyes the color of bruises now, not the sea.

"Not yet, you haven't. That doesn't mean you won't. It will be much kinder if it never knows anything different. Now let go of me or you will regret this, too." He tried to kick her off, but she clung to him all the tighter.

"No, you promised! You promised!"

"I did no such thing." The baby began to cry, disturbed by the noise and his efforts to get free of the sobbing female clinging to his leg. She was going to leave him no choice. If she wanted dramatics, he would give her dramatics.

He brought the short riding whip down across her upturned face. He hadn't had it a moment ago, but this sort of thing required props. The blow knocked her off his leg and she retreated to the center of the room where he threw a crystal at her.

After she disappeared, he turned to the baby in his arms, comforting and quieting it reflexively as he walked out of the room and down the hall.

.….

In a week or so he took her from the oubliette and brought her back to the throne room.

"You have a choice," he told the crumpled, dirty bundle of cloth and red hair, lying on the floor in front of him.

"Where's my baby?"

"Forget about the baby," he dismissed. "This is about you. You can stay here in the Underground or you can go home. I will send you home to the moment you left, of course. As far as everyone else will be concerned you will have never been gone." He fell silent and waited for her response.

She thought of her dreams, everything she had imagined about the Underground, what had happened, what she had wanted to happen, what might still happen. She thought about what she had to go back to. She could go back to her lousy relationship with her father and stepmother, or maybe she could go live with her aunt and uncle who had offered to keep her for a few years until she could live on her own. Neither one appealed. No one there really understood her.

"It's your choice," the Goblin King prompted her. "It's nothing to do with me."

"I want to stay here."

He leaned his head on his fist and sighed, then waved her away to the room she had occupied since she arrived in the Underground.

.….

She remained in the Underground, doing odd jobs around the castle as Jareth assigned them to her, but never again did he touch her in any way. Sometimes he talked with her, most of the time he ignored her.

Children were wished away and their saviors and would-be saviors came and went, making their choices and learning their lessons, some in the Labyrinth some in the confrontation in the castle. Many years passed and she began to age, gray appearing in the fiery red and wrinkles etching the porcelain skin.

One day, as she sat in the throne room mending goblin garments, he was in the mood to talk and their conversation wandered over many things. She finally found the courage to ask him a question that had been bothering her for some time.

"Why did you want me here?" she asked him in a lull when he had returned to the book he was reading.

"Hmm?" he asked looking up at her.

"You said, 'Love me, fear me, do as I say and I will be your slave.' You must have wanted me to be here for some reason. Why?"

"Why do you think?" he asked her. "No." He held up a hand, stopping her protest. "I mean that as a serious question, not some sarcastic retort. Tell me why you think you are here."

"I thought it was because you loved me at first, then I thought it was because you enjoyed the worship and abusing me. Now I don't know why. Because you need someone to darn goblin socks?" she suggested, holding up the handful she was working on.

He smiled kindly. "No, it's none of those reasons. Though you are very handy for that last one," he teased mildly.

"Then why?"

"I am trying to teach you something. Something that you just don't seem to be learning," he sighed. "Just when I think I'm making progress, I run into a girl like you."

"What do you mean?"

"Most learn the lesson by now. Some while they are running the maze, some once they reach the castle, and a few stay here in the castle for a while before they learn, but almost all of them learn and go home. Except you and a handful of others. What did Sarah learn in the movie? Do you remember?"

"That life isn't fair. I think I've learned that, become resigned to it."

"Now that's the problem exactly. Fairness was not the point. It was all about how she looked at things, about her perception of the world around her. It's all in how you look at things."

"What's that got to do with me?"

"You can see the world as unfair and against you," he explained, "or you can get on with things and do something. You can see the way I treat you as something you deserve, perhaps as something being done to you that you can't do anything about. Or you can see it as something that you don't deserve and don't have to endure and that you can do something about. You have chosen to see it as something that's being done to you, that you can't do anything about. But this is something you can change." He gestured at the room around them. "You can walk away from this at any time, control your life and your destiny."

"I just get up and walk out the front door? You'd never let me do that."

"I gave you a choice," he reminded her. "You could change your mind at any time. You were free to go whenever you wanted, whenever you truly wanted. You're the one keeping yourself a prisoner here. All you had to do is to change your point of view to see that you didn't deserve this, didn't need this or need me and didn't have to stay."

"All of this has been to teach me that? Two children turned into goblins, all that pain and suffering, just to teach me that? Why not just send me to therapy?"

"Well, you did start it, remember? You're the one who wished the first child away. But in any case, none of it happened."

"I felt you kick me. That was real. And you turned those kids into goblins."

"Are you sure? I never said I turned them to goblins. You assumed I did because that was what you wanted to believe. It has all been a blend of my magic with your beliefs to fool your mind."

"So I could go back now? To when I left? And Alex will be there at home and no one will know the difference?"

"Perhaps. If you really wanted it, if you truly understood what I'm trying to teach."

"You don't think I do?"

"No. And I don't know if you could live at home in your real world now if you did. You have been wrapped up in the dreams you have built of this place for so long that I don't know if you are capable of letting go of them anymore. You may not be able to deal with anything else."

She sighed and sat quietly for a moment looking down at her hands in her lap. Then she looked up at him. "But that should be my choice. Didn't you say I should make my own choices?"

"Yes," he said with a small smile.

"Then I think I should go back. My fairy tale dreams aren't making me happy. I don't know if they ever did."

* * *

Labyrinth and its characters and contents belong to The Jim Henson Company. 


End file.
